NEW YORK – Twist Bioscience said before the market opened on Monday that it has raised its full-year fiscal 2025 revenue guidance after reporting strong first quarter revenue growth.
The synthetic biology and genomics company now expects full-year revenues to be in the range of $372.0 million to $379.0 million, representing growth of 19 to 21 percent, year over year, compared to previous guidance of $367.0 million to $377.0 million. For fiscal Q2, Twist said it expects total revenue of approximately $91.0 million to $93.0 million.
SynBio revenue is expected to be in the range of $144.0 million to $147.0 million compared to the previous estimate of $142.0 million to $146.0 million. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) revenue is expected to be in the range of $205.0 million to $209.0 million, compared to the previous estimate of $204.0 million to $209.0 million. Biopharma revenue is expected to be approximately $23.0 million, compared to the previous estimate of approximately $21.0 million to $22.0 million.
"We're starting the fiscal year strong, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to progressing toward adjusted EBITDA breakeven," CEO and Cofounder Emily Leproust said in a statement.
Revenues for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2024 increased 24 percent year over year to $88.7 million from $71.5 million a year ago, beating the consensus Wall Street estimate of $87.0 million.
Synbio revenues, which include genes, libraries, and oligo pools, totaled $34.4 million, up 28 percent from $26.9 million a year ago. "We continue to see sequential growth in our Express [genes] portfolio, both in revenue and number of net new accounts," Leproust said on a conference call with investors following the release of the results.
NGS revenues were $48.6 million, up 23 percent from $39.4 million a year ago, driven by liquid biopsy and rare disease assays.
Biopharma revenues were $5.7 million, up 10 percent from $5.2 million a year ago. "We had 89 active programs as of the end of December 2024, and we started 67 new programs during the quarter," CFO Adam Laponis said.
Healthcare revenues rose to $40.9 million, up from $30 million a year ago, "reflecting the increased uptake of our products by pharma, biotech, and diagnostic companies," Laponis said. Industrial chemical revenues rose to $16.3 million from $15.3 million a year ago. Academic revenues were $13.8 million, up from $10 million a year ago, with growth coming from both synbio and NGS customers.
By region, Americas revenues were approximately $53.7 million, up 22 percent from $44.0 million a year ago. Europe, Middle East, and Africa revenues were $28.3 million, up 33 percent from $21.2 million a year ago. Asia Pacific revenues were $6.7 million, up 6 percent from $6.3 million a year ago.
Leproust noted that it makes all of its products in the US, while several competitors manufacture theirs in China. With new tariffs targeting China, Canada, and Mexico recently announced by the US government, "what that means is, if there was a package coming from China from a competitor that was worth $500, there used to be no tariff and now there's a 16.5 percent tariff on it," she said, "so it's definitely a headwind for [those competitors]."
The firm is also not expecting much in the way of retaliatory tariffs from Mexico and Canada. "We have a very, very limited exposure to Mexico," Leproust said. "If we look at Canada, it's a low, small couple of percent. And as far as we know, in the Canadian retaliatory tariffs, there are no tariffs on DNA."
Twist reported a fiscal Q1 net loss of $31.6 million, or $.53 per share, compared to a net loss of $43.0 million, or $.75 per share, in Q1 of FY 2024.
Twist's Q1 R&D expenses fell 8 percent to $21.3 million from $23.1 million in the year-ago quarter. SG&A expenses grew 6 percent to $56.2 million from $52.8 million a year ago.
As of Dec. 31, 2024, the company had $221.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and $49.4 million in short-term investments.